


the pepperoni to my pizza

by novembersmith



Series: the head to my hat [1]
Category: Alice (2009)
Genre: F/M, Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 14:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5460428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/pseuds/novembersmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mom, this is Hatter,” Alice says proudly, beaming all over her face in a way that makes Hatter feel a little like he’s been poked square in his unworthy chest with the world’s nicest cattleprod. “He saved my life.”</p><p>“Yes, I know,” Carol says with obvious befuddlement and slight disapproval. “But how do you know him? You <i>do</i> actually know him, right?”</p><p>What a question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the pepperoni to my pizza

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freloux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freloux/gifts).



> Takes place immediately during/after the final scene of the series. Many thanks to my betas, to be revealed later!

Hatter has imagined this a lot of ways – sometimes the weight of those ways had been like a chain around his neck, in fact, nearly impossible to move beneath – but he hadn’t anticipated Alice’s lunge the second she saw him.

Surprises aren’t often good, in Wonderland. But maybe they are here. This surprise is top notch, an unasked for feather in the jauntiest of caps, a Cheshire cat presented with unexpected cream. This is Alice, clean and warm and in his arms, neither of them in mortal peril or freshly tortured or bleeding. Heaven beyond reckoning.

The second surprise is a little more—well, surprising, strangely. Because after some deliriously magnificent kisses, Alice takes his hand and drags him over to Mrs. Hamilton – “Carol, please,” she’d said after he’d anxiously watched Alice taken away on a stretcher. “Anyone who saves my daughter should use my first name.”

“Well, then, you should definitely have mine,” he’d said, and given it gladly. Because she’s saved _me_ enough, he didn’t say.

And now it’s introductions again, as though the first hadn’t been terrifying and uncertain enough.

“Mom, this is Hatter,” Alice says proudly, beaming all over her face in a way that makes Hatter feel a little like he’s been poked square in his unworthy chest with the world’s nicest cattleprod. “He saved my life.”

“Yes, I know,” Carol says with obvious befuddlement and slight disapproval. “But how do you know him? You _do_ actually know him, right?”

What a question. The question, in fact, that is currently taking up residence somewhere deep in his innards and gnawing at him. Hatter isn't entirely sure any of them know the answer to it.

But Alice answers simply enough, with an eyeroll and an air of aggrieved fondness, almost petulance, that is new and strange and delightful. This is Alice as a daughter, not the daughter of a lost man, but of a mother, well-known and loved. He wants more, he wants to know every facet of her, he wants—

“Yes, Mom, I kiss random construction workers all the time," Alice is saying, rolling her eyes, and then continues casually. "Of course I know him, I'd trust him with my life." Hatter can't swallow for a moment; the question is lodged in his throat, now, trying to choke him.

“But… _how_ do you know him?” There is a familiar, foreboding glint of steel in her mother’s voice now. They’re alike, Hatter realizes, terrified and delighted despite himself. Saints above, there’s two of them.

“I think you’d better sit down,” Alice says, and Hatter realizes the next surprise is about to fall square on this house like a ton of cards. “You know Wonderland?”

“The story?” Carol says slowly, a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows.

“Oh, it’s a story, alright,” Alice says, rubbing at her forearm, where the curlicue of olive, oyster-mark brand had been. And that’s when Hatter realizes, flat out, that Jack really _was_ wrong—and that _shouldn’t_ have been a surprise, should it? The prat had mucked up plenty before, hadn’t he? Though in the end, it had worked out, Jack’s madcap dash to the Oyster’s world and his be-ringing of the Carpenter’s daughter.

So, this, Hatter had trusted him on. Besides, Jack had that Royal Voice, that Kingly Air, that set his peasant blood to scraping in spite of himself. It’s not like he can trust his own conscience, can he?

 _You’ll need to blend in, of course. She won’t want anyone to know_. Followed by a crash course on oysters—as though Hatter hadn’t picked up bits and bobs himself, over the years. Dregs of stolen technology, records, body armor, hats.

But still dazed by Alice’s eyes, bright with promise as she’d looked over her shoulder at him, dazzled by the mirror behind her, Hatter had held his tongue and been given a new identity and an oyster name with two parts to it, and plenty of apparently worthful pieces of paper. And it’d all been for nothing, all that work, after all.

Teach him to make plans, where Alice was concerned. You’d think he’d have learned, by now.

Alice, it seems, does _not_ want to keep Wonderland—or him—a secret. Elation and terror, Hatter remembers both teas well—very similar in color. Is he feeling excited, or sick? He can’t tell, he’s too delighted still by his hand in hers.

No secrets, of course she doesn’t want to keep secrets, she’s the most honest thing he knows. A sick curl of nausea emerges in his stomach, rearing its head. He should try to tell her, he still has so many secrets himself, from her, fuck, he should tell her before Alice tells her mother anything else.

Later, he thinks. Oh, please, later. Let there be lots of laters.

“No, seriously, Mom, sit down,” Alice is saying, and Hatter, who knows by now not to attempt to change her path when she takes that tone, takes a nervous seat, at the edge of a couch.

And Alice sits at his side.

Easy as anything, comfortable and close. He can barely breathe for the mix of emotions roiling in him, a teakettle set to boil. He tries to keep the squeak of it in—he has to impress Alice’s mother, Jack had said, and in this, Hatter suspects he was right. But.

“Are you _sure_ we won’t both be committed?” he asks worriedly—Jack had been very clear on the possibility of this issue, too. But maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say, because Carol’s eyes bug out slightly. Hatter would never say so, but for a lovely lady she looks, for a moment, very Jabberwocky-like.

“Eh, we’d just go back to your world for a bit,” Alice says flippantly. But her hand, as she speaks, tightens on his. “I’m sure Jack can find work for us, right? With the Knights, or the Library… I mean, what are you even—you’re not here to stay anyway, are you?”

“What?” Hatter asks dumbly, his extremities suddenly tingling and his head light. “I—do you want me to go?”

“No!” Alice says, gratifyingly quickly, and then pulls him in by the lapel for a quick, searing kiss, claiming and sharp. It makes Hatter want to roll over, kick a leg, purr, but—her mother’s still right there. “But your people need you. I know that. I mean, that’s the reason you fought with me, with us, all along, isn’t it? To see your home put back to rights.”

“Not the only reason,” he says hoarsely, feeling as though he’d swallowed a whole box of frogs, kicking ones. “And, um. Jack said—whatever you want, we’re welcome back through the Looking Glass whenever. It’s up to you. I just want… well. To be with you. Wherever you are.”

“I’m sorry, but what in _hell_ are you talking about?” Carol snaps, the temper clear in her voice and Hatter looks at her with automatic fondness—he does know that voice, that tone, all too well. “Does he know _Jack_? And a Looking Glass? Alice.”

“Remember the ring, Mom?” Alice says, with a wry smile, and she’s still looking at Hatter, their eyes locked.

That bloody ring.

“That ring of Jack’s that sent you running out into the night and into a hospital bed? Yes, I remember it very well,” Carol says tartly. And hah, at least Hatter’s one up on Jack _here_.

He lets Alice tell the story, because she’d know better than he what an oyster would think of this—and he should stop calling them oysters, really. He puzzles over this while Alice talks, distracted by the press of her leg to his and trying not to panic over the cool, considering look on her mother’s face.

Wonderland, Underland, wasn’t it called, once? Back in the days of the Red King and the Chess Court, the first Alice. History, in dusty pages he’d read out to little ones when he visited the Library. The Queen of Hearts was the one that’d changed brands, long ago, before his time.

And that’d make this Overland, wouldn’t it? Overlanders, instead of oysters. Yeah, he thinks returning to the old brand might be better, in this case. Less molluscan. There’s nothing of the mollusk about Alice – she’s all open sky and stars. And the terminology change could help with the new Underlanders adjust—no, maybe better stick to Wonderlanders, Jack will have enough trouble stabilizing the kingdom without…

“Hatter. Hatter. Hatter!”

“Sorry, yes, hello. Hi!” he splutters back into the conversation, feeling a lot like Charlie, fumbling in awkward, clanking armor.

“Where were you just now?” Alice asks, looking amused and a little worried.

“Nomenclature,” he says airily. “Are you done with the exposition?”

She huffs out an exasperated breath at him, and he looks at her mother from the corner of his eye.

“I’m not saying I believe you,” Carol says, all regal dignity that makes Hatter want to squirm, scuff his boots, check his hands for smudges. “But _something_ clearly happened, and Alice isn’t an idiot.”

“Thanks,” Alice says dryly.

“And…” Carol says, looking at her own hands suddenly. “Your father—he did. He did talk about—oh, you were too young to remember, but he did work on theoretical biology, and physics. He would talk about mythology, stories, about finding other worlds out of time, when he had a glass or two in him. I’d… I’d forgotten that.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Hatter agrees, a glimmer of memory emerging. “‘s why they nabbed him, his job experience, so to speak.” And then that serpent curl of nausea in his stomach rears its head back up and hisses evilly, because Alice has turned to _look_ at him.

“Alice,” he says uneasily, and rubs at the back of his head, startled to find hair and not hat.

“They took him on purpose? How do _you_ know that?” she says, and it’s not suspicion in her eyes—he’s seen that before, he knows it too well, the dagger of it—but it is surprise, and realization. Realizing you don’t know me as well as you think, he thinks miserably.

More surprises, now, and not the good kind, probably.

“Alice, we should talk,” he says, staring at the floor intently, then at the ceiling, anywhere but her, right now. He wants to remember how she looks when she’s not looking at him with disgust.

“I’ll let you catch up,” Carol says delicately, and stands. “But I want to know more. Soon.”

“Of course,” Alice says distractedly, and there’s the sound of measured steps, and a glass of something being poured, before a door closes and the room is empty of all but the two of them. Hatter knows something about assessing the feel of a room, keeping track of the comings and goings of the people in it.

“Hatter,” Alice says, and it’s strangely gentle, and her hand is still in his, which is a lot, at this point. She has to know, she has to suspect. “Look, I—admit I got excited, to see you. I thought—maybe I was crazy, that it was all just some weird dream, and I’d _missed_ you. Probably I shouldn’t have just—tackled you, right out of the door.”

“No complaints,” Hatter says hastily, and is dizzy with how good it is to look at her and see a dimple appear, her eyes warm. She’s smiling at him. Alice, smiling at him. He’d do a lot for that. He’d do anything.

“But you’re right,” she says, smile fading and face growing solemn. “We do need to talk. There wasn’t a lot of time, in Wonderland.”

“Yeah, there was a lot of running for our lives to do, and all,” Hatter agrees nervously. He wishes he had a hat. A hat’s good for a lot of things. Hiding under. Taking off and twisting at the brim while twisting oneself. “Didn’t leave a lot of time for chatting about, ah. Backstory.”

“Hatter,” Alice says patiently. “My dad was the most wonderful man I knew, and he spent years, decades, kidnapping and draining his fellow humans for drugs in basically the most colorful cartel ever. I know what the Queen can do to people. And I know you’re a good man.”

“Trying to be,” Hatter says thickly, and can’t look at her. He stares at his hands—two hands, both his, now. Not always. “Not always,” he echoes his own thoughts. “Did, you, ah. Never wonder about my right hand?”

“The sledgehammer,” Alice says steadily, and catches his chin in her own right hand, and turns his face to look at her. As soon as he does, she lets go, holding him only with her eyes. “Do you want to tell me about it? You don’t have to do it now. It’s enough that you’re here. With me.”

“I think… I need to get it over with, I need you to know, I’m sorry,” he gets out in a rush, then covers his face with his left hand. He can’t—he can’t see her face right now. “You remember Mad March?” he says, muffled.

“Rabbit-headed guy, Brooklyn accent? Yeah, he kind of stood out,” Alice says levelly. Brooklyn? Hatter thinks, and tucks it away to ask about on a rainy day, if a rainy day is to be had.

“We worked together, a bit, before I got out, and into the tea trade, and revolution, and—” He has to press his head to his knees all of a sudden, breathing too difficult to manage upright. “We grew up together, you could say. She trained us as, as tykes. Made us what she needed. Enforcers of her word.”

“He was the Queen’s prize assassin, wasn’t he?” Alice says, just _says_ it, and her hand is on the back of his neck, light and warm. He doesn't understand how she can stand to touch him.

“It wasn't always killing people," an excuse, weaker than watery tea. "That was more March, I was just—muscle. I didn’t like it,” Hatter chokes out, and his jeans are wet, now. Hey, it’s raining after all, already. “March did, eventually, but I never liked it. ‘s why I got out, best I could, and keep my head. Cowardly, right?” He remembers March’s face, when he’d found out Hatter’d squirmed a new job out of the crown.

 _At least I’m honest about killing people_ , he’d sneered, and Hatter had tipped his hat to him, and made his way out, sold his tea and ruined lives, of his people and hers, and—

“No,” Alice says. “I met the Queen, remember? I know who to blame. Hatter. Hatter, hey. Please look at me.”

Bravest thing he’s ever done, raising his head inch by inch to meet her face. Her pure, bright shining face, too bright for him by far. But her eyes are wet too.

“In the end, you helped bring her down. You helped keep a civilization going, kept people alive to be saved, all along. I’m not saying—Look. I don’t know what all you’ve done. You can tell me, if it helps, if you want. But I met the—the Doctors. I saw what happened to my father. And I know who you are.”

“Do you?” Hatter asks thickly.

“I know you care. I know you saved me, when you didn’t have to. You’re not cruel. You don’t like causing pain. You want to help people. You’re a good man, Hatter.”

“Your father made my arm,” he says wretchedly, and sees, _feels_ her stiffen. “And I used it to hurt people.”

She’s pale, and her eyes are like a winter sky, shivering and bright. “And you used it to save me,” she says, and then, because she’s braver than him, takes his right hand, the hand of granite and dead men and dead men’s words, and kisses it, softly, over the blood-stained knuckles. “Hatter.”

He’s trembling. “If it wasn’t for you, what would I have done? What would I have become?” he says hoarsely.

“If it wasn’t for you, who would Ratty have brought me to?” she counters, tilting her head, and the alarm of that thought shakes him into sitting back up, pulling her towards him, instinctive and worried. “See?”

“But Alice,” he says, in spite of how much he wants to hide behind her words, her comfort. She deserves truth. "I’ve still... I've done a lot of terrible things.”

She doesn't let go of his hand.

“Time to do some more good ones, then," she says. "So when are we going back?”

He stares at her, and she stares back, calm, cool, level as a lake. He knows she's not ignoring what he's said; he knows that look on her face. She's assessed it, born the weight of it all on her shoulders, and moved on, carrying it with her. It should be impossible, he thinks, for anyone to love someone else this much. How can he hold it all in one body?

“Whenever you want. Whatever you want,” he says. He’s never meant anything so much.

“Well,” she says, and dimples at him, and stretches up to kiss his wet cheek. “I remember being promised pizza. Maybe that, first.”

“Pizza,” he says wonderingly, and feels, impossibly, a smile begin to widen on his face. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”


End file.
